A poem by Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012)
Something spreading underground won’t speak to us
under skin won’t declare itself
not all life-forms want dialogue with the
machine-gods in their drama hogging down
the deep bush clear-cutting refugees
from ancient or transient villages into
our opportunistic fervor to search
crazily for a host a lifeboat
Suddenly instead of art we’re eyeing
organisms traced and stained on cathedral transparencies
cruel blues embroidered purples succinct yellows
a beautiful tumor
•
I guess you’re not alone I fear you’re alone
There’s, of course, poetry:
awful bridge rising over naked air: I first
took it as just a continuation of the road:
“a masterpiece of engineering
praised, etc.” then on the radio:
“incline too steep for ease of, etc.”
Drove it nonetheless because I had to
this being how— So this is how
I find you: alive and more
•
As if (how many conditionals must we suffer?)
I’m driving to your side
—an intimate collusion—
packed in the trunk my bag of foils for fencing with pain
glasses of varying spectrum for sun or fog or sun-struck
rain or bitterest night my sack of hidden
poetries, old glue shredding from their spines
my time exposure of the Leonids
over Joshua Tree
As if we’re going to win this O because
•
If you have a sister I am not she
nor your mother nor you my daughter
nor are we lovers or any kind of couple
except in the intensive care
of poetry and
death’s master plan architecture-in-progress
draft elevations of a black-and-white mosaic dome
the master left on your doorstep
with a white card in black calligraphy:
Make what you will of this
As if leaving purple roses
•
If (how many conditionals must we suffer?)
I tell you a letter from the master
is lying on my own doorstep
glued there with leaves and rain
and I haven’t bent to it yet
if I tell you I surmise
he writes differently to me:
Do as you will, you have had your life
many have not
signing it in his olden script:
Meister aus Deutschland
•
In coldest Europe end of that war
frozen domes iron railings frozen stoves lit in the
streets
memory banks of cold
the Nike of Samothrace
on a staircase wings in blazing
backdraft said to me
: : to everyone she met
Displaced, amputated never discount me
Victory
indented in disaster striding
at the head of stairs
for Tory Dent
A few random poems:
- Fragmentary Blue by Robert Frost
- Colonel Martin by William Butler Yeats
- My iPod by Roland Bastien
- Ольга Берггольц – Ответ
- Haunted by you by Melissa Skelton
- Jessie by Thomas Edward Brown
- Низами Гянджеви – Я долго шел по лугу лет
- Two Lacquer Prints poem – Amy Lowell poems | Poems and Poetry
- The Immortal Part poem – A. E. Housman
- On The Morning Of Christs Nativity poem – John Milton poems
- Less Than The Cloud To The Wind by Sara Teasdale
- Salve! by Thomas Edward Brown
- Everybody’s Makin’ It Big But Me by Shel Silverstein
- Sleep Did Come Wi’ The Dew by William Barnes
- Владимир Высоцкий – Нет меня, я покинул Расею
External links
Bat’s Poetry Page – more poetry by Fledermaus
Talking Writing Monster’s Page –
Batty Writing – the bat’s idle chatter, thoughts, ideas and observations, all original, all fresh
Poems in English
- Soul Receives From Soul by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Some Kiss We Want by Rumi
- Sleep of the Body the Soul’s Awakening by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Quatrain 1693 (Farsi with English Translation) by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Passion makes the old medicine new: by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Out of Your Love by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Only Breath by Jelaluddin Rumi
- One Whisper of the Beloved by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Ode 1957: An intellectual by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- O You Who’ve gone on Pilgrimage by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Not Here by Rumi
- Not Intrigued With Evening by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Love is a Tree by Rumi
- Love is the Water of Life by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Love is Reckless by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Love Has Nothing to Do with the Five Senses by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Lord, what a Beloved is mine! by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Like This by Rumi
- Let go of your worries by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
- Late, by Myself by Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi
More external links (open in a new tab):
Doska or the Board – write anything
Search engines:
Yandex – the best search engine for searches in Russian (and the best overall image search engine, in any language, anywhere)
Qwant – the best search engine for searches in French, German as well as Romance and Germanic languages.
Ecosia – a search engine that supposedly… plants trees
Duckduckgo – the real alternative and a search engine that actually works. Without much censorship or partisan politics.
Yahoo– yes, it’s still around, amazingly, miraculously, incredibly, but now it seems to be powered by Bing.
Parallel Translations of Poetry
The Poetry Repository – an online library of poems, poetry, verse and poetic works

Adrienne Cecile Rich (1929 – 2012) was an American poet, essayist, and feminist.